Australia have bounced back with two wins in Wellington over Aotearoa's Blackcaps, bringing the series level at 2-2 with the funky decider coming tomorrow. There's a fair bit of jam in this series, from symmetry to individual performances and as is the case with any decider or knockout contest, the sharpness of these little pockets is amplified.

Aotearoa won the first two games, Australia won the next two games.

Aotearoa batted first in the opening two games, Australia batted first in the Wellington games.

For all the funk, this last game may simply be won by the team batting first. It's also fairly interesting that this decider is in Wellington, where Australia have won both games while the kiwis won the two South Island games. Maybe this is merely about having fans in attendance as Aotearoa won the two games with fans, Australia won the two games without fans and the cake tin will welcome Wellingtonians in for the decider.

Spin Funk

Those games in Canterbury and Dunedin also featured swing, changing the paradigm of T20 cricket as top-order batsmen can't instantly fire shots. Now, in Wellington the pitch is festering with spin and both teams have quality spinners who align in geometrical symmetry. Aotearoa has leggy Ish Sodhi and lefty Mitchell Santner, Australia has leggy Adam Zampa and lefty Ashton Agar.

Sodhi, Agar and Santner all have 6+ wickets each and sit in the top-four bowlers for this series. Zampa's a bit further back with his 4w and this is to say that the most important bowlers are the spinners, boosted by a pitch that has shown plenty of spin juice and one would assume that the cake tin's droppy pitch will stay where it's at.

Sodhi and Zampa spin the ball both ways, plus they have skiddy varieties.

Santner and Agar both rip lefty turners, vary their pace and have the seam-up delivery that turns them into Trent Boult.

If the spinning conditions remain, the T20 dynamic is again altered as batsmen simply can't swing through the line, miss the middle of their bats and still slam sixes. In such conditions, their is far better balance in skill application and as these four spinners are flexing (Sodhi and Santner are among Aotearoa's best T20I bowlers, ever) batsmen have to show their batsmanship.

Ish Sodhi: 10w @ 13.30avg/8.86rpo/9sr.

Ashton Agar: 8w @ 11.37avg/7rpo/9.7sr.

Mitchell Santner: 6w @ 12.66avg/6.60rpo/11.5sr.

Adam Zampa: 4w @ 26avg/8rpo/19.5sr.

Had this game been in the South Island, or at Eden Park's six-hitting arena then I'd have a different vibe approaching the decider. This pitch in Wellington is likely to turn, after spinners have already shown their value and skill, plus the boundaries are slightly bigger.

Devon Conway's bounce back?

Prior to his 99* in the first game, Conway had scores of 50, 69*, 91* and 93* to finish the Super Smash. Conway has since had a lid chucked on him by the Aussies with scores of 2, 38 and 17, with all three dismissals caught and his last two dismissals in Wellington; caught Stoinis, bowled Agar.

Glenn Phillips yet to fire

Remember when Phillips was dominating Pakistan and West Indies? After that, Phillips managed 156 runs in 9inns of Super Smash @ 17.33avg/162.50sr and against Australia, Phillips has tapped 52 run @ 13avg/133.33sr in his 4inns. Phillips has two scores of 30 in his last 10inns of T20 cricket.

At least against Australia, Phillips' strike-rate is high. The few runs he is scoring at of value via that high strike-rate and that's something to cling to.

Tim Seifert however?

Here's how Seifert's recent T20 antics roll out...

Caribbean Premier League: 133 runs @ 22.16avg/109.91sr.

vs West Indies: 35 runs @ 17.50avg/134.61sr.

vs Pakistan: 176 runs @ 88avg/139.68sr.

Super Smash: 281 runs @ 28.10avg/115.63sr.

vs Australia: 27 runs @ 6.75avg/62.79sr.

For this type of batsman who is trying to establish themselves as a consistent selection, the disparity in run-scoring is to be expected (Conway, Phillips and Chapman fit this category). What's interesting is that Seifert isn't scoring freely and it makes sense for Blackcaps to dominate against touring West Indies and Pakistan teams, so those are logical outliers.

Seifert was playing behind a stacked Trinbago batting line up in the 2020 CPL, which in theory should have seen him have a jolly ol' time whacking in around - especially given all the noise about him working with B-Mac.

Super Smash is cool, not the highest quality of T20 cricket though and as we've seen Conway dominate Super Smash, one could expect a player of Seifert's ilk to at least score freely (130+ strike-rate). Both of these have now filtered through to this series vs Australia, who are a quality unit despite missing their Test players and this is weird.

Easy on the hype

Earlier in the summer, Seifert was thrown up as the second coming of lord B-Mac.

Kyle Jamieson has not played an international cricket game outside of Aotearoa.

The Indian Premier League likes to portray a image of cricket analytics and T20 cricket in general is viewed as the leaders in statistical growth. Most of the time though, it's all based on hype and who the has whipped the cricket world into a brief frenzy. Jamieson took 1w in the first game, followed by no wickets in the next three games and Jimmy Neesham (13.16rpo) is the only bowler in this series who has been more expensive than Jamieson's 11.66rpo.

We're all hoping for Jamieson to flip this around and the same can be said for Seifert. This points to a couple bigger ideas though. First is the in-balance between games played in Aotearoa and overseas right now. No cricketer should have any grand judgement made about them until they play at least one series overseas and that goes for kiwis, as well as any other nation's cricketers where home conditions are easier to perform in.

Also, understanding expectations. In Aotearoa we are especially interested in the pockets of our sports stars as they make suitable money for their talents and the media is fascinated by how much money they make. In the case of Jamieson, his IPL value was celebrated by kiwi media as if that price-tag was the be all and end all of who Jamieson is as a cricketer.

There is little energy put into understanding IPL business. Even worse, such importance is placed on this IPL value that kiwis themselves then expect Jamieson to perform at that (hype influenced) value all the time. The IPL is crazy and much of it doesn't make much sense - very few kiwis play 10+ games in an IPL season - so let's just allow Jamieson to figure out these early stages of his career in peace.

Who wins these big games for Aotearoa?

Scoring runs, taking wickets and winning games is lovely throughout a series. What we need to figure out as kiwi cricket fans is the match-winners, especially given the recent record in Super Overs etc and what is to come in the form of T20 World Cups and a World Test Championship Final. To win those events, Aotearoa needs cricketers who perform when it matters most.

In this series, we're looking to Kane Williamson, Martin Guptill, Tim Southee and Trent Boult as the leaders. Sodhi and Santner have been good to this point, plus they're two of Aotearoa's best, but what do they do in a decider after their opponent has seen their variations and tactics?

Perfect time for Jamieson to step up huh? Take Neesham for example as he's been the most expensive bowler in this series, yet he was the bloke in Dunedin who executed when it mattered most. I can see through niggly form dips or mediocre performances if there is a record of this player dragging his team to important wins.

Regardless of what's happened prior in this series vs Australia, the key nugget to take away feels like it will be whether the Blackcaps can win a decider and who are the blokes who lead the team to victory.

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Peace and love.